When fiction can’t be an escape

No, this will not be a political post. Nor will this be a post about what is currently happening south of the border (for me) at present. What it will be is a post about how a type of fiction I usually, seriously, and profoundly love is so close to the current reality that I have to postpone my readings of that genre for a time. Not a long time, but long enough for fiction to get back to being fiction.

Many of my posts and reviews, since the birth of this blog, have been about paranormal romance, a genre that I enjoy immensely. However, I am also an avid reader of political thrillers and law enforcement thrillers. You know, those books where law enforcement people and political figures are, well, extremely corrupt, to the point that they are doing things that would be unforgivable in real life? Yes, those books.

I love them. Because they are fiction. They are not reality. The problem is that what is happening right now, in real life, are things that I read in those works of fiction: how corrupt cops target innocent people, how law enforcement agencies do massive cover-ups of their misdeeds by eliminating the good guys who were about to denounce them (or have denounced them), how politics and politicians create situations of unspeakable violence to promote their ideals.

All those things are not fiction, right now, in the democratic world. They have become reality, they are part of the reality, an extremely scary reality.

Consequently, reading those books of a genre that I totally love has become too stressful, because they hit too close to home, too close to things that are happening to people that I know, love, respect.

So what do you do when fiction isn’t fiction any longer? You take a break of the genre or the book series. Because fiction is, first and foremost, an escape. Right now, my favoured thrillers are not an escape. In consequence, I have to interrupt reading them for a time.

I will get back to them. When the situation gets back to having those books that I love being completely fiction again. For now, let’s just say that the thrillers and I are on a break.